Ruling — Arkham Horror (Third Edition)

You asked

How do I set up Arkham Horror (Third Edition) for 4 players?

Answered counted as answered

Asked with: Arkham Horror (Third Edition)bg-257499-en-1e

To set up Arkham Horror (Third Edition) for 4 players, follow these steps:

1. Choose one available scenario sheet as a group and place it in the play area, returning all others to the box.[1][2]

2. Arrange neighborhood and street tiles as shown on the back of the scenario sheet using tiles with the indicated icons.[1][2]

3. Shuffle encounter cards separately to create encounter decks using only the street and neighborhood cards that correspond to the neighborhoods used in the current scenario; return all other neighborhood cards to the box.[1][2]

4. Create the headline deck by shuffling the headline cards and dealing 13 of them into a facedown deck, then return the remaining headline cards to the box.[3]

5. Separately shuffle the item cards, ally cards, and spell cards to form three decks and place them in the play area.[3]

6. Keep special cards and condition cards sorted and placed off to the side.[3]

7. Take the top five cards of the item deck and place them in a faceup row next to the item deck to create the display.[3]

8. Separate all tokens by type and keep them nearby with the dice.[3]

9. Keep all archive cards in a single stack in numerical order.[3]

10. Each player chooses one investigator sheet, takes their respective investigator token, one activation token, and one reference card.[4]

11. Choose one player to be the leader; that player takes the leader activation token (the one with the flashlight) as their activation token.[4]

12. Each investigator gains the cards and money tokens indicated in the “Starting Possessions” section on the back of their sheet, returning unchosen or unused starting cards to the box.[4]

13. Place all investigator tokens in the starting space indicated on the scenario sheet.[4]

14. Draw the top three cards of the event deck one at a time; for each card, place one clue token in the central area of its corresponding neighborhood tile, then add that card to its corresponding neighborhood deck by shuffling it with the top two cards of that deck and placing them on top.[4]

15. Place one doom token on each space indicated on the back of the scenario sheet.[4]

16. Draw the bottom card of the event deck and discard it faceup next to the deck; place one doom token in each space that has a doom icon next to its name on that card.[4]

17. Resolve any effects in the “Finalize Setup” section on the back of the scenario sheet.[4]

[1] RULEBOOK Arkham Horror (Third Edition) — Rulebook · p.4

[2] RULEBOOK Arkham Horror (Third Edition) — Rulebook · p.4 · Components · Setup · 1. Choose Scenario · 2. Prepare Board and Encounters

[3] RULEBOOK Arkham Horror (Third Edition) — Rulebook · p.6

[4] RULEBOOK Arkham Horror (Third Edition) — Rulebook · p.7

🔧 debug — where this ruling came from

outcome: ANSWERED — Answered
corpus profile: live
answerer pin (deploy-frozen, attribution only): gemma4:26b think:false 5571076f3d70
timings: search 238 ms · ask 11035 ms · total 17115 ms
single-flight (PR-5): queued 5833 ms · generation 11282 ms
retrieval refs (raw) — what the PASSAGE SEARCH returned, not what the answerer read: [{"page": 15, "score": 0.032787, "snippet": "There are a few more things you need to know to save Arkham. The next several sections describe anomalies and the items, allies, and spells you get along the way. As you have encounters across Arkham, you will gain allies, spells, and items to help you to combat the evils of the mythos. When you gai", "headingPath": "Additional Rules · Items, Allies, and Spells · The Display · Hands · Casting Spells · Assigning Damage and Horror", "sharpsignalDocId": 413}, {"page": 16, "score": 0.032258, "snippet": "Third Edition Game Design: Nikki Valens Original Game Design: Richard Launius and Kevin Wilson Additional Development: Daniel Lovet Clark with Dane Beltrami, Pat Harrigan, and Tim Uren Editing: Adam Baker Proofreading: Molly Glover with Matt Click Board Game Manager: Andrew Fischer Arkham Horror Sto", "headingPath": "Credits", "sharpsignalDocId": 413}, {"page": 2, "score": 0.031746, "snippet": "Sidebars like this one appear throughout this booklet to provide context for rules, visual diagrams, strategy tips, or additional narrative. 2 The year is 1926, and it is the height of the Roaring Twenties. Flappers dance till dawn in smoke-filled speakeasies, drinking alcohol supplied by rum runner", "headingPath": "Sidebars · Welcome to Arkham! · Game Overview · Learning How to Play", "sharpsignalDocId": 413}, {"page": 7, "score": 0.03125, "snippet": "7 10. Choose Investigator(s) Each player chooses one of the investigator sheets. There are many investigators, and each one has unique abilities and skills. Each player takes their respective investigator token (inserted into a plastic stand), one activation token, and one reference card. As a group", "headingPath": "", "sharpsignalDocId": 413}, {"page": 7, "score": 0.030769, "snippet": "With everything in place, all that remains is to set up the clues and doom that await the investigators in the coming story. Spawn Starting Clues -Draw the top three cards of the event deck one at a time. For each card, place one clue token in the central area of its corresponding neighborhood tile.", "headingPath": "11. Final Preparations · Investigator Roles", "sharpsignalDocId": 413}, {"page": 8, "score": 0.030303, "snippet": "During the action phase and encounter phase, investigators can take their turns in any order. After you perform your two actions, flip your token to its inactive side. Active Inactive After you resolve your encounter, flip your token back to the active side. The codex is the collection of cards plac", "headingPath": "Tracking Your Turns · The Codex · Playing the Game", "sharpsignalDocId": 413}, {"page": 6, "score": 0.029851, "snippet": "(If you are in a street space, place the doom in an adjacent neighborhood space instead.) Opinion: Our choices have placed us on this path • New civic engagement required • Advertiser deserves its share of blame by Doyle Jefferies, editor in chief. Arkham, Mass. WE HA VE NO ONE TO BLAME BUT OURSEL V", "headingPath": "", "sharpsignalDocId": 413}, {"page": 4, "score": 0.029412, "snippet": "Scenario Sheet To set up the game, follow these steps in order: As a group, choose one of the available scenario sheets. For your first game, we recommend 'Approach of Azathoth.' Place that sheet in the play area. Return all other scenario sheets to the game box. Arrange the neighborhood and street ", "headingPath": "Components · Setup · 1. Choose Scenario · 2. Prepare Board and Encounters", "sharpsignalDocId": 413}]
citations (raw) — what the answer cited, chosen from a retrieval this page cannot show: [{"page": 4, "quote": null, "headingPath": "", "sharpsignalDocId": 413}, {"page": 4, "quote": null, "headingPath": "Components · Setup · 1. Choose Scenario · 2. Prepare Board and Encounters", "sharpsignalDocId": 413}, {"page": 6, "quote": null, "headingPath": "", "sharpsignalDocId": 413}, {"page": 7, "quote": null, "headingPath": "", "sharpsignalDocId": 413}]
boost provenance — errata + base rulebook (E2/E3): no registered errata card matched this query; base rulebook doc 413 boosted; rulesage.errata.boost-enabled=true, rulesage.errata.supersedence-enabled=true
base rulebook doc 413 boosted
answered-before recall: this ruling was answered, so past rulings were not offered
similarity threshold in force: 0.55 (rulesage.answered-before.similarity-threshold; the exact-question tier is not gated by it)
debug row retained until: Nov 10, 2026 18:23

retrieval — what the passage search returned

what this block IS: the PASSAGE SEARCH's own results — the same search that fills this page's closest-passages list — and NOT the passages the answerer read. Answering runs its OWN retrieval: a far wider candidate pool, re-ranked down to a final handful, plus floors this search never applies — the base rulebook, surviving errata corrections, and one slot per book on a multi-book read. Each of those armed only if THIS ask sent what it needs: the boost block names the ids it forwarded, and the scope line names the books it read. A document the answer CITES that no row here names is therefore EXPECTED, not a defect: two searches, two candidate pools, two orders. The answerer's own final rows are shown in their own block below, beside these and never mixed into them.

score = the fused retrieval score (reciprocal-rank fusion over the search arms) — NOT a cosine similarity. This ruling ran the THREE-ARM fuse (full-text + vector + the doc-priority boost arm, which carried the base rulebook and/or the errata corrections this query matched), whose arithmetic ceiling is 0.04918 — all three arms ranking the same chunk #1 (ceiling = arms/(k+1) at k=60). The measured healthy band 0.016–0.033 was measured on TWO-arm asks and does not bound this one: its high end is the two-arm ceiling, and a third arm has room above it. A chunk only one arm ranked highly lands near 0.016 (that one arm's #1 vote), so 0.03 here is an excellent hit, not a 3% match.

per-arm ranks (the rank each search arm gave a chunk): NOT DISCLOSED by the gateway. Fusion happens gateway-side and only the FUSED score crosses the wire, so rulesage cannot show them without a gateway change. The rank column below is the FUSED rank (position in the returned list), which is real.

token count per chunk: NOT DISCLOSED — chunk token counts are not reported on the ask path. The character counts below are of the bounded snippet/quote rulesage actually received — a real measurement of what we hold, never an estimate of the chunk.

fused rank	document	heading	page	fused RRF score	snippet chars
#1	RULEBOOK Arkham Horror (Third Edition) — Rulebook (corpus doc 413)	Additional Rules · Items, Allies, and Spells · The Display · Hands · Casting Spells · Assigning Damage and Horror	p.15	0.032787 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300
#2	RULEBOOK Arkham Horror (Third Edition) — Rulebook (corpus doc 413)	Credits	p.16	0.032258 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300
#3	RULEBOOK Arkham Horror (Third Edition) — Rulebook (corpus doc 413)	Sidebars · Welcome to Arkham! · Game Overview · Learning How to Play	p.2	0.031746 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300
#4	RULEBOOK Arkham Horror (Third Edition) — Rulebook (corpus doc 413)		p.7	0.03125 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300
#5	RULEBOOK Arkham Horror (Third Edition) — Rulebook (corpus doc 413)	11. Final Preparations · Investigator Roles	p.7	0.030769 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300
#6	RULEBOOK Arkham Horror (Third Edition) — Rulebook (corpus doc 413)	Tracking Your Turns · The Codex · Playing the Game	p.8	0.030303 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300
#7	RULEBOOK Arkham Horror (Third Edition) — Rulebook (corpus doc 413)		p.6	0.029851 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300
#8	RULEBOOK Arkham Horror (Third Edition) — Rulebook (corpus doc 413)	Components · Setup · 1. Choose Scenario · 2. Prepare Board and Encounters	p.4	0.029412 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300

what the answerer read — the passages it actually had in front of it

what this block IS: the passages the ANSWERING read put in front of the answerer, in the order it read them — the other half of the two reads described above, and the one that decides what the answer could possibly say. Each row names the book it came from and where in that book it sits, what it scored when the search arms were fused, which arm carried it there, and whether the re-ranker chose it or a floor guaranteed it a slot. A row here that no passage-search row names is EXPECTED: a far wider pool, re-ranked, with floors the passage search never applies.

candidate pool: the answering read scored 40 passages, out of a ceiling of 80 set gateway-side. Both figures are reported by the gateway for THIS ask — measurements of what actually happened, not constants read out of anyone's source and printed here on faith.

floors armed for this ask: the base rulebook — armed · surviving errata corrections — not armed · one slot per book on a multi-book read — not armed. Every floor is stated on every ask, armed or not, so a floor that did not apply here is never mistaken for one this app does not know about.

arms fused for this ask: vector + full-text + the doc-priority boost arm. Stated separately from the rows because an arm that ran and carried nothing is a different fact from an arm that never ran.

read at	document	heading	page	fused rank	fused RRF score	carried by	how it got its slot
#1	RULEBOOK Arkham Horror (Third Edition) — Rulebook (corpus doc 413)	Credits	p.16	#2	0.032258 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	vector + the doc-priority boost arm	the re-ranker chose it
#2	RULEBOOK Arkham Horror (Third Edition) — Rulebook (corpus doc 413)		p.4	#10	0.014286 (below 0.016, the low end of the measured band — a weak fuse (that band was taken on two-arm asks; only its low end, one arm's #1 vote, carries over to a 3-arm one))	vector	the re-ranker chose it
#3	RULEBOOK Arkham Horror (Third Edition) — Rulebook (corpus doc 413)	Being Defeated · Example Test · Health and Sanity one skill of your choice. 'You got a job that needs doing, · While Defeated	p.9	#17	0.012987 (below 0.016, the low end of the measured band — a weak fuse (that band was taken on two-arm asks; only its low end, one arm's #1 vote, carries over to a 3-arm one))	vector	the re-ranker chose it
#4	RULEBOOK Arkham Horror (Third Edition) — Rulebook (corpus doc 413)		p.6	#13	0.013699 (below 0.016, the low end of the measured band — a weak fuse (that band was taken on two-arm asks; only its low end, one arm's #1 vote, carries over to a 3-arm one))	vector	the re-ranker chose it
#5	RULEBOOK Arkham Horror (Third Edition) — Rulebook (corpus doc 413)	Core Concepts · Skill Tests · Modifying Tests · Damage and Horror	p.9	#32	0.01087 (below 0.016, the low end of the measured band — a weak fuse (that band was taken on two-arm asks; only its low end, one arm's #1 vote, carries over to a 3-arm one))	vector	the re-ranker chose it
#6	RULEBOOK Arkham Horror (Third Edition) — Rulebook (corpus doc 413)	Components · Setup · 1. Choose Scenario · 2. Prepare Board and Encounters	p.4	#8	0.029412 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	vector + the doc-priority boost arm	the re-ranker chose it
#7	RULEBOOK Arkham Horror (Third Edition) — Rulebook (corpus doc 413)	Additional Rules · Items, Allies, and Spells · The Display · Hands · Casting Spells · Assigning Damage and Horror	p.15	#1	0.032787 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	vector + the doc-priority boost arm	the re-ranker chose it
#8	RULEBOOK Arkham Horror (Third Edition) — Rulebook (corpus doc 413)		p.7	#4	0.03125 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	vector + the doc-priority boost arm	the re-ranker chose it

chosen chunks — what the answer actually cited

#	document	heading	page	quote chars
[1]	RULEBOOK Arkham Horror (Third Edition) — Rulebook (corpus doc 413)		p.4	no quote on the wire
[2]	RULEBOOK Arkham Horror (Third Edition) — Rulebook (corpus doc 413)	Components · Setup · 1. Choose Scenario · 2. Prepare Board and Encounters	p.4	no quote on the wire
[3]	RULEBOOK Arkham Horror (Third Edition) — Rulebook (corpus doc 413)		p.6	no quote on the wire
[4]	RULEBOOK Arkham Horror (Third Edition) — Rulebook (corpus doc 413)		p.7	no quote on the wire

generation — timing and the path taken

timing split: retrieval 238 ms · first delta 5475 ms · total 17115 ms (retrieval and first-delta both measured from the START of gateway work, so first-delta INCLUDES retrieval — do not subtract)
full breakdown: queued 5833 ms · retrieval 238 ms · ask 11035 ms · gateway work 11282 ms · total 17115 ms
tokens in (the prompt the answerer read): 4037
tokens out (what the answerer generated): 553
tok/sec: 96.1 tok/sec — 553 output tokens in 5.753 s of generation
live seat (read from the running child): answering — gemma4:26b think:false · num_ctx 32768 (live-verified 16s ago)
stream path: streamed — the gateway pushed at least one accumulated draft
watchdog: first-token watchdog: 30s per arming window (rulesage.table.first-token-watchdog-seconds), re-armed once by the passages frame — so the worst case before a reader falls back to polling is 60s. Whether it actually fired is a BROWSER-side decision that never reaches the server, so it is not recorded here. The stream path above is the server's half of that story: whether a delta was emitted at all.
num_ctx · think posture: both are the CHILD's settings, not rulesage's, and no ask reply carries them — an answer never states which context window or think posture produced it. The live-seat line above reads them from the running child instead, where the gateway can answer for itself; it describes the child NOW, not this ask.

disposition

outcome: ANSWERED — Answered
abstain rationale (n/a — this ruling answered): answered — no abstain rationale applies

setup-shape — why the checklist band did or didn't render

decision: NO_APPROVED_CHECKLIST — setup-shaped, but no approved setup checklist exists for this game
pattern that matched: SETUP — "setup" / "set up"
matched words (in the normalized question): set up

errata registry — what the gate above had to match against

this game registers NO errata cards (edition 342), so "no registered errata card matched" above could never have matched one

Errata scope: the gate above matched this ruling's own edition only. When an ask also reads an expansion, that expansion's own registered errata cards stay outside the match — a stated phase-1 limitation, not a failed lookup.